Ultimate Surrealism
Many years ago, at University of Wurzberg, philosophers and pysycologists studied the nature of introspection. What they discovered is what is now known as “imageless thought.”
In arts and literature, we have had our surrealism. Unfortunately, too often surrealism is closely tied to imagery, mostly visual. But I dare say that the ultimate surrealism is imageless. It is, to use Buddhist terminology, empty of any intrinsic property or attribute.
So, what appears to be shifting paradox is not paradox at all if paradox itself is devoid of paradox as an intrinsic attribute.
Here is one attempt made by a Korean poetess.
Taklamakan Desert
by Kim Hye Soon
(from Words Without Borders)
Translated from the Korean by Jiwon Shin
Washing her hair as the sun rises
a thighless one
pours a dipper full of sand over her hair and
lowers her head into the sand pit with a splash.
The footless one
tosses her hair in pendulum as she
rinses it out in the sand river.
This chestless,
hairless,
O, bodiless one washes her hair.
We shall never come . . . or go . . . you there . . . and
me here.
Dry strands of hair from the fallen days rise and
tumble, swaying this way and that.
From sunrise to sundown
the woman washes her hair
not even once straightening her waistless back.
She combs and caresses the ripples of the sand river.
How aptly said! The memory someone you once loved never ages. It only fades, and vanishes at the end.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
interesting, wish you had elaborated